THE NATIVE PEOPLES OF TURKS AND CAICOS

By William F. Keegan
With the assistance of Lisabeth Carlson and Corbett Torrence

This article was originally written for Times of the Islands: The
International Magazine of the Turks and Caicos.* It was published in the
Summer 1996 issue and is reprinted here with their kind permission. Although the
article uses the Turks and Caicos and Bahamas as its starting point, much of the
information is relevant to all of the Native Peoples of the West Indies.

Introduction

They are known today as Lucayan [Tainos]: an anglicized version of the Spanish
'Lucayos,' which derives from the Arawakan words Lukkunu Kaíri ('island men').
The Lucayans share a common ancestry with the Taino societies of Puerto Rico,
Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Jamaica (the Greater Antilles), who they
separated from around A.D. 600 when they began to colonize the Turks and Caicos
and the Bahamas (hereafter called the Lucayan Islands). By 1492, they had
settled all of the larger Lucayan Islands. In addition, they continued to
exchange goods with other Tainos living in the Greater Antilles.

To date, most of what has been written about the Tainos has drawn upon the
written record left by the Spanish. However, because the chronicles were written
to serve political objectives, be they for or against the native peoples, and
because the chroniclers themselves were limited in their abilities to understand
a non-western culture, these documents are rife with errors and misinformation.
The uncritical use of the historical record has hampered efforts to understand
native West Indian societies. For although we continue to speak of Tainos as a
single unified group, there were regional differences in language and culture,
if not also in race. One need look only to the Soviet Union or the former
Yugoslavia to be reminded of the fragility of national identities. The present
paper draws on the last two decades of anthropological scholarship to present a
brief chronicle of the development and extinction of Lucayan Taino culture.

Origins

The origins of the Tainos are traced to the banks of the Orinoco River in
Venezuela. As early as 2100 B.C. villages of horticulturalists who used pottery
vessels to cook their food had been established along the Middle Orinoco. During
the ensuing two millennia their population increased in numbers and they
expanded down river and outward along the Orinoco's tributaries to the coasts of
Venezuela, the Guianas, and Trinidad. Their movements are easily traced because
the pottery they manufactured is so distinctive. Called Saladoid after the
archaeological site of Saladero, Venezuela, their vessels were decorated with
white-on-red painted, modeled and incised, and crosshatched decorations.

White-on-red painted saladoid bowl from Guadeloupe, circa AD 300-600.

Animal faces adorned the sides and rims of many Saladoid pots.

Saladoid peoples expanded through the Antilles at a rapid pace. Because their
earliest settlements, which date before 400 B.C., are in the Leeward Islands,
Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, the inescapable conclusion is that most of the
Lesser Antilles were leapfrogged in a direct jump from Venezuela/Trinidad to
Puerto Rico and its neighbors. Moreover, the conditions which stimulated the
initial migration into the Antilles continued to fuel dispersal from South
America bringing a variety of related ethnic groups into the Antilles over the
next millennium.

Saladoid peoples lived in small villages and practiced swidden agriculture in
which a variety of different crops were cultivated in small gardens; a practice
very similar to present day "casual cultivation." Due to the limited
fertility of the soil gardens were cultivated for only a few years before new
gardens had to be cleared. Frequent movement of village sites is evident from
the absence of deeply stratified sites. A number of the early sites are located
inland on watercourses adjacent to prime agricultural land, but most Saladoid
sites are in coastal settings. In both settings, horticulture was the primary
source of food. At the inland sites land-crab remains are the main component,
while at coastal villages the shells of marine mollusks and bones of marine
fishes were also important.

For some reason the Saladoid advance stalled after they had colonized eastern
Hispaniola. Irving Rouse has suggested that a large and well-established
population of hunter-gatherers barred their forward progress, and that the
Saladoid population needed time to grow and refine their adaptation to island
life before the frontier was breached. Some of the resident foragers may have
been assimilated before further expansion took place.

The next phase of cultural development is announced by a marked change in
material culture. The previously elaborate pottery decorations disappear,
especially along the frontier where most of the pottery was undecorated with
only red slip and the simplest modeling retained from the Saladoid series. These
simplified designs have been classified as comprising the Ostionoid series,
named for the type site of Ostiones in western Puerto Rico. By A.D. 600 the
Ostionoid peoples had resumed the advance of their Saladoid ancestors and had
begun to expand along both coasts. Expansion along the southern coast of
Hispaniola led to the colonization of Jamaica, while movement through the
northern valleys led to the colonization of eastern Cuba, the Bahamas, and the
Turks and Caicos.

Given their modern barren landscapes it is often asked why anyone would leave
the fertile valleys of the Greater Antilles to live in the Lucayan Islands. The
answer is that although the Lucayan Islands are today covered by low scrub
vegetation and there is a noticeable lack of fresh water, these conditions did
not prevail 500 years ago. In fact, the Lucayan Islands would have been quite
attractive to small groups of horticulturalist who farmed the loamy soils and
relied on the sea for fish and transport.

Diet

Spanish records indicate that the Lucayans cultivated as many as 50 different
plants, including varieties of sweet and bitter manioc, sweet potatoes, cocoyams,
beans, gourds, chili peppers, corn, cotton, tobacco, bixa, genip, groundnuts,
guava, and papaya. The carbonized remains of corn, chili peppers, palm fruits,
unidentified tubers (probably manioc and sweet potato), and a gourd (from Middle
Caicos) are among the plant remains identified in West Indian sites. At least
50% of the Lucayan diet came from plant foods. Manioc (cassava) was the staple,
followed by sweet potato. Corn was apparently of little importance.

Manioc tubers require special processing because they contain poisonous
hydrocyanic acid. Sweet manioc has such small quantities of the poison it can be
prepared like sweet potato -- peeled and boiled. Bitter manioc, however,
requires a more elaborate procedure which involves peeling, grinding or mashing,
and squeezing the mash in a basket tube to remove the poisonous juices. After
the juice is removed the paste is either dried and sieved for use as a flour or
toasted into farina (a principal ingredient of tapioca). Water is added to the
flour to make pancake-like cassava bread which is cooked on a flat clay griddle.

The poisonous manioc juice is not discarded. It is boiled to release the poison
and then used as the liquid base for casiripe, "pepper pot" stew.
Pepper pot is made by adding chili peppers, other vegetables, meat and fish to
the simmering manioc juice. In this way foods that would otherwise spoil can be
preserved for future meals. The slowing simmering pot is available for meals
throughout the day. Today in South America, pepper pot is eaten with cassava
bread. Fragments of large ceramic bowls and griddles, made from red loam and
burned and crushed conch shell, are common in archaeological sites.

Parrotfish are the most common fish in archaeological sites.

The other half of the diet came from land animals and the sea. The few land
animals that were available (iguana, crabs, and a cat-size rodent called hutia)
were highly prized, but were available in limited quantities. The major source
of animal protein came from the coastal marine environment. Marine turtles and
monk seals were available seasonally, but the main foods were the fishes and
mollusks who feed in the grass flat/patch reef habitats between the barrier
coral reef and the beach: parrotfish, grouper, snapper, bonefish, queen conch,
urchins, nerites, chitons, and clams. Fish were captured with nets, basket
traps, spears, bow-and-arrow, and weirs. The latter involved building check-dams
across the mouths of tidal creeks which allowed fishes to enter at high tide but
prevented their escape when the tide changed. Meat and fish were barbecued (a
Taino word) on a grill, with leftovers added to the pepper pot.

When you consider the number of ways a Lucayan could satisfy their hunger, the
islands are noteworthy for the abundance of options. It is difficult to imagine
that anyone ever went hungry; a conclusion confirmed by the preliminary
examination of human skeletal remains which indicate that the Lucayans enjoyed
remarkably good health and nutrition. They certainly did not suffer from the
nutritional and diet-related disorders that plagued other horticulturalists in
the West Indies and elsewhere.

Society and Village Life

Recreated bohio and canei.

The Tainos lived in large multi-family houses. In Hispaniola there were two
kinds of houses: the rectangular caney, and the round-to-oval bohio which had a
high-pitched, conical thatched roof. Although probably an exaggeration,
Bartolome de las Casas reported that some houses were occupied by 40 to 60 heads
of household (roughly 250 men, women, and children). Households were formed
around a group of related females. Grandmother, mother, sisters, and daughters
lived together and cooperated in farming, childrearing, food preparation, and
craft production. Men, by virtue of their absence from communities during
periods of long-distance trade and/or warfare, were peripheral to the household.
The importance of females as the foundation of society was expressed by tracing
descent through the female line to a mythical female ancestress.

The household's belongings were stored on the floors and in the rafters
of the houses. Cotton hammocks for sleeping were strung between the central
supports and eaves. Excavations of a house floor on Middle Caicos revealed
ash deposits which may have come from small, smoky fires used to control
insect pests and to warm the house at night. Cooking was probably done
in sheds outside the main house.

Lucayan women cooking, according to Benzoni, 1571.

Most villages in the Lucayan Islands were composed of houses aligned atop
a sand dune with the ocean in front and a marshy area behind. Quite likely,
these marshy areas provided ready access to fresh water before the islands
were deforested. In addition many sites are located just offshore on small
cays, such as Iguana Cay in Jacksonville Harbour, East Caicos.

Lucayan sites occur in pairs, which reflects either cooperation between socially
allied communities or sequential settlements in the same location. The
former possibility is more likely because it is the men who most often
were the leaders, even in matrililineages, and especially with regard
to external relations. In a matrilineal society, your mother's brother,
and not your father, is the most important male in your life because he
heads your family's lineage. However, if men are needed by their matrilineage,
yet are expected to live in their wife's village, then social relations
will be unstable. These competing demands can be balanced by establishing
villages in close proximity, thus reducing the distances that men must
travel to participate in their lineage affairs.

In the Turks and Caicos and the Greater Antilles a slightly different type of
community plan predominates. Here the houses are arranged around central plazas.
The plazas were used for public displays, ritual dances, recording astronomical
events, and for the Taino version of the ball game. The house of the cacique
("chief") is usually located at one end of the plaza, and within the
cacique's house are stored the village idols and spirit representations called
cemís. This community plan shows a heightened solidarity among its members
reflecting the social hierarchy and competition between cacicazgos (chiefdoms).

Archaeological site on Middle Caicos with two-plaza plan. At
the center of Plaza 1 is a court which has stones aligned to track the summer
solstice and other astronomical events.

Religion

Petroglyph of the chief female diety Atttabeira, the fertility
goddess. Her image is carved on a large stone in the main ball
court of Caguana, Puerto Rico.

The Taino pantheon of spirits, called cemís, was divided according to the
dichotomies of gender and cultural/noncultural. There were principal male and
female spirits of fruitfulness, Yucahu, the giver of manioc, and Attabeira, the
mother goddess. They both attended by twin spirits. The anti-cultural world was
ruled by Maquetaurie Guyaba, Lord of the Dead, and Guabancex, Mistress of the
hurricane. They too were attended by sets of twins. Cemís played an active role
in the affairs of humans, and they served to distinguish between that which was
human, cultural and pleasing; and that which was non-human, anti-cultural, and
foul. But as exemplified in the twins, the Tainos recognized that the spirits of
the world could simultaneously have positive and negative characteristics. Rains
are good when they arrive at the right time and in the right quantity, but they
can devastate agricultural lands when the timing is wrong or too much rain
falls. The world is in a delicate balance, and the spirits must be attended to
to maintain this balance.

The chief male diety, Yocahu, "the giver of manioc."

Political Organization

By the time Europeans arrived, Taino society had two main divisions. The rulers
of the community were nitainos (nobles) which included caciques, behiques
(healer or shaman), and other elites who held positions of authority. Caciques
ruled at several levels from the paramount caciques who ruled large regions, to
district leaders who were allied to a paramount, to headmen and clanlords who
ruled at the village level. It should be noted that women were also sometimes
chiefs. Noble birth was the main prerequisite of this rank. Alliances were
formed between caciques at all levels through arranged marriages.

Map of the major Taino provinces on Hispaniola.The island is shown with east
at the top to reflect the Taino belief that the sun rose at the top of the world.
The names of the principal caciques who ruled in these territories are given
in the smaller font (Source: Peter O'B. Harris,personal communication).

Supporting the rulers were large numbers of commoners. Blood and marriage
(kinship) are the threads that bound commoners to caciques. There was also a
level below the commoner class which the Spanish described as a class of
servants called naborias. Naborias were once thought to be slaves, but a careful
reading of the chronicles indicates that they served through a sense of
obligation and were not chattel.

Caciques organized villages into regional polities who competed with each other
for a variety of resources. There is increasing evidence that contrary to the
"peaceful Arawak" stereotype, the Taino Cacicazgos made war on each
other prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Caciques also organized long-distance trade. Travel between islands was
accomplished in canoes dug out of a single log. The largest canoes (also a Taino
word) could carry 100 passengers. Traders sought both domestic (salt, dried fish
and conch) and exotic materials from other cacicazgos and from neighboring
islands. The Chama shell disc beads that were manufactured on Grand Turk are an
example of an exotic good. These beads were woven into belts that served to
record alliances between cacicazgos. These and other exotic materials served to
reinforce the authority of the caciques to whom access to these goods was
restricted. By one account, Taino caciques held authority of life or death over
their subjects.

Warfare

This "heroic" scene of Columbus "discovering"
America erroneously depicts the event that led
to the demise of Taino culture in less than one generation.

When Columbus set foot on the island he called San Salvador, he was met by young
men carrying spears who were there to defend their village. Other encounters
between the Spanish and Tainos also point to the importance of warfare in Taino
society. For instance, when Columbus embarked on the conquest of central
Hispaniola in 1494 he was challenged by an army of up to 15,000 warriors
(although this may have been an exaggeration). Moreover, shortly after the
Spanish arrested Caonabo, the cacique of Maguana, Bartholomew Columbus was
passing along the Neiba River which formed the boundary between Xaragua and
Maguana. Here he encountered an army from Xaragua which was probably in the area
to co-opt villages that had previously been allied with to deposed Chief Caonabo.
Taino social organization also points to the presence of an organized and
well-armed militia.

Genocide

Within a generation of the arrival of the Spanish, the native peoples of the
Lucayan Islands were extinct. In 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon sailed through the
Lucayan Islands on his way to Florida. He encountered only one old native man in
the Turks and Caicos Islands. Other expeditions followed, including two in 1520
which failed to encounter any native peoples in these islands.

The fate of the Lucayans can be traced to the mines on Hispaniola and pearl beds
of Cubagua Island off the coast of Venezuela. By 1509, the Spanish Governor of
Santo Domingo had convinced King Ferdinand that there was a critical shortage of
labor on Hispaniola. In response the king ordered the removal of all peoples
from the neighboring islands to Hispaniola. A slaving consortium was soon formed
in Concepcion de la Vega, although documents in the archives in Seville suggest
that the practice of enslaving Lucayans had begun much earlier. Peter Martyr
reported that 40,000 Lucayans were brought to Hispaniola. The total population
of the islands was probably twice that number when children, old people, and
others who died are included. A total population of 40,000 to 80,000 Lucayans is
consistent with archaeological deposits in these islands.

When Columbus set foot on Guanahaní he was met by people whose simple dress and
material technology belied their social and political complexity. Theirs was a
vibrant culture in the process of filling up the northern and western Lucayan
islands at the same time they were competing amongst themselves for political
and economic control of the central islands. Moreover, had the Spanish never
arrived the Lucayans might soon have been subject to demands from the Classic
Tainos on Hispaniola who were already establishing bases in the Turks and Caicos
and Great Inagua by the middle of the 13th century. Instead, they are remembered
as the first to challenge Columbus and the first to be extinguished.

Recreated face of a Lucayan man based on Columbus' descriptions.
(Björn Landström)

*Times of the Islands, ISSN 1017-6853, is published four times
per year by Times Publications Ltd., P.O. Box 234, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, BWI. E-mail:
timespub@caribsurf.com